This invention concerns improvements in or relating to protective helmets for use by operatives in industrial environments.
In particular, although not exclusively, the invention has reference to such helmets for use in the mining or quarrying industries wherein the need for protective headwear is especially acute. Protection is required not only to prevent physical injury but also to avoid and indeed minimise damage to the respiratory organs, to the aural, ocular and olfactory senses.
Protective helmets in the form of powered helmet respirators are already known and generally include a protective shell within which is provided means for introducing a filtered air supply between the wearer's face and a visor which may assume a fixed disposition on the shell or may be pivotally mounted outside the shell to allow movement into and out of an operable, i.e. protective, position in front of a wearer's face.
It is also known to provide protective helmets with ear defenders mounted externally of the shell and pivotable between operative and inoperative positions. The problem is that because of their location exteriorly of the shell, they can become snagged on equipment which occasions discomfort to the wearer, and damage or dislodgement of the ear defender.
It has been and remains a feature of known powered helmet respirators that they are cumbersome and also heavy and poorly balanced when provided with respirator fans and filter, face visor and ear defenders, with consequential user resistance.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved protective helmet.